The Justice League may be able to stop villains who want to take over the world, but in DC vs. Vampires, comic book fans will be forced to ask: what can superheroes really do when faced with a vampire army? And what happens when those blood-sucking undead are already claiming their friends and allies in secret?
The new maxi-series kicks off just in time for Halloween, fueled by an impressive alliance of artist Otto Schmidt (Green Arrow) and Matt Rosenberg (The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox), who is co-writing the vampiric epic with James Tynion IV (Batman). With the success of DCeased and its zombie apocalypse openly referenced in relation to this new book, fans shouldn’t be confused about what to expect from DC vs. Vampires. This time around the horror will be growing slowly, with the added threat of turning friends, lovers, and allies into forces for an unseen, intelligent enemy. Screen Rant had the chance to hear from Rosenberg directly, and learn how this secret, bloody war will be unfolding across the 12-issue series. Whether you’re a fan of vampire conspiracies, I, Vampire, or a new starring role for Green Arrow, fans will want to read our full interview and preview embedded below.
You’re launching two DC horror titles just in time for Halloween [DC vs. Vampires and Task Force Z], with two different flavors of undead. Coincidence?
Matthew Rosenberg: [Laughs] Launching both of the same time was news to me, like a week before announcement. I liked the coordination, but I can’t take any credit for that being planned. If these came out in March, I wouldn’t have noticed.
But the origin of each book is very different, and both of them don’t entirely involve me. DC vs. Vampires I’m co-writing with James Tynion IV, and it’s a book that James pitched as he was taking Batman. He thought he would have more time, it was before his Joker book was conceptualized. He wasn’t sure how long he would be on Batman, and so he was like, “This is what I want to do next.” He pitched it, everyone was excited about it, it was greenlit, and then Batman took off. He pitched his Joker book, that took off.
Then at a certain point, Ben Abernathy, who is our wonderful editor, said, “Okay, are you ready to do DC vs. Vampires?” And James was correct in saying, “I don’t have time to do that. I’m really overbooked and overworked and so busy. Could I bring in a co-writer?” Ben was intrigued, and I’ve been working with him on Grifter. They reached out to me and gave me this three-sentence version of the book, and I loved it.I was like, “Yeah, I’m all in. Let’s do this. This sounds awesome.”
It was funny, because I was very enthusiastic about it on the phone call, and they were disappointed. I remember James being like, “You said yes too quickly.” Was I not supposed to say yes? And he was like, “We have an ace up our sleeve on the pitch. We already have Otto Schmidt signed on to draw it.” I had just worked with Otto on Hawkeye over at Marvel, and I love Otto, and working with him. So I was like, “Then I’m doubly in, I guess.”
Not to speak for James, but I think the idea is that you look at books like DCEASED and things like that, where you can really go wild and do fate of the universe stuff, where you’re challenging the audience’s expectations at every step. That’s something that we’re really trying to embrace. I think that was in his initial conception, and something that I’ve tried to really run with in writing the book is to just keep people guessing, keep people shocked and in awe of how crazy we can make it. Because it is its own separate universe.
Dracula is in public domain, and there actually used to be a version of Dracula in DC Comics. Why do you think he’s not a bigger player, or should he be a bigger player in DC vs. Vampires?
Matthew Rosenberg: Yeah, the DC Dracula is weird because his origin is somewhat different than the Dracula people are used to. We talked about using him in the book, but there are other characters that I think me and James really gravitate towards more that are vampires. – specifically, Mary Queen of Blood and Andrew Bennett from I…Vampire. Those are characters that I think the audience responds to more and have more of a connection to the DC Universe.
The idea of using Dracula came up, but there’s a lot of overlap between what Dracula is and what Mary Queen of Blood is. And we had to pick one; having two leadership vampires was going to be confusing. I think Mary’s exciting, because she’s her own thing for the DC Universe. She’s much more a DC character than I think you get from a Dracula.
I wouldn’t rule out Dracula appearing at some point, but he was just not the character we needed for the role at the time. Also, other people have Draculas, and it’s like, “How many Draculas do you need?” A lot, but we were maxed out.
You’d mentioned Otto before. How is it working with him on this book and really cutting loose, both literally and figuratively with this title?
Matthew Rosenberg: Yeah, it’s a dream. Otto is one of my favorite artists I’ve ever worked with. We had such a blast, and he’s another artist that I think has no weaknesses – or whatever they are, I don’t know what they are. I haven’t found them yet from doing a dozen issues with him so far.
His characters are so exciting and beautiful, and the thing I didn’t know was – when we worked together on Hawkeye, it was very contained. It’s a single character, and sometimes he’s in fights. This is escalating to pure chaos, and he just does it so well. I was very nervous about it, because he’s so good at individual characters and the choreography of a one-on-one fight or a two-on-one fight. When we got to the point of, “Let’s just cut loose here and make it a brawl and a fight for the planet,” he’s just naturally great at it. Of course, I should have known.
But you see it on the first cover, I think, that he did. That was the first image, because the first issue is a little quiet for where it goes. I was like, “Let’s have the first cover be kind of loud and see how Otto does.” And the first cover was Batman and Green Arrow fighting an army of vampires, and they’re the last men standing. It’s awesome; it’s an awesome cover, and that’s just what he brings to the book.
Later on, it’s just that he handles that chaos so well and makes it beautiful. And it’s really hard to do chaos as pretty as he does, but he does it perfectly.
You have two horror books releasing together, but in terms of the pace, the introduction and almost the implied genre of the books, they feel like they could not be more different.
Matthew Rosenberg: Yeah, I think that’s intentional on my part and just partially keeping myself excited about what I’m working on. But also, it’s very easy to do books like these and be like, “Okay, I know what this book should be,” and just do that. And I think we’re trying, on both books, to upend that a little. With DC vs. Vampires, we want it to be big and epic and have the fate of the universe stakes. But also, we know we have time. We know we have issues. We know we have a readership for this, so we want to build it slowly. We want to do creeping dread.
One of the things that we talked about a lot, me and James, was that the way a book DCEASED works – you know it’s the fate of the world from go. It’s very clear that if we don’t stop this, everything ends. What’s fun to us about the vampires is that there’s subterfuge, there’s stealth, there’s, “Who do you trust?” And so, we want it to dig into that sense of growing dread. It’s not an adrenaline rush book, it’s a creeping dread kind of book.
We can still do heart and humor and all that stuff easily, because the stakes are growing and spiraling out of control at a slow pace, which I really like being able to do and sort of build a book over time. Not that there isn’t a lot of fun from blowing up the world on panel one, but it’s nice to just be able to be very thoughtful in how you approach the horror elements and the stakes of these books. It’s nice to be able to come at them from different places. It’s a fun thing for me, for sure.
In DC vs. Vampires, part of the built-in threat is that the heroes beside you might have already started working for the enemy.
Matthew Rosenberg: I love that idea [that] so much of what these characters do is built on trust. It’s trust in humanity, and it’s trust in the people who fight beside you, and trust in the fact that you can win. And we’re just doing everything we can to whittle away at that trust. What do these characters become when they don’t trust anyone, when they’re not sure they can win, when they don’t know that humanity as they know it is going to be the good guys?
And I think it is very fun, because you see a different side of these characters that you don’t see a lot. I know that Batman has his plans for what if anybody on the Justice League turns evil, but at the end of the day, he trusts his life with these people and he trusts fighting side by side with them. And this is the story where he has to pull that back, and he can’t trust anybody. A big scene in the series is him closing his circle tighter and tighter until it’s just the Bat family and, even then, inside the Bat family it’s, “Do you trust them all equally?” Where does he stand with everybody?
You see Green Arrow doing the same thing, and you see other characters not. A big thing is that John Constantine doesn’t see the world that way; he never trusted anybody. John Constantine sees the worst in everybody, because he constantly is struggling to not be the worst. For him, this is a normal day of just, “Anyone could try and kill me, and that’s how we proceed.”
But I like putting these characters that we all know in new positions. The obvious thing is, “What if they’re the villains of the story?” But that to me is less exciting then, “What happens when you start taking away the things that we’re used to seeing them have? Who do they become, and who are they?” And that’s why I’m having so much fun on the book, because we get to do both. We get to do unexpected villains and we get to do unexpected heroes as we go on, but also we get to see all these characters in a new position we haven’t seen them in.
What was the process of selecting the characters you were going to highlight in DC vs. Vampires?
Matthew Rosenberg: James had an initial idea, which was very Justice League-centric and very Bat-centric. Those were things that he was just working on; he was working on Batman and he had just come off working on a bunch of Justice League stuff, so I think those were very heavily in his mind. But also, those are those are characters and books that he loves, and so he gravitated towards them.
I came in and liked them, but I was like, “I want to deal with other people here. I want to have some unexpected characters.” We discussed a lot, but I said to him, “I really want Constantine. I need Green Arrow. Green Arrow needs to be as big as Batman in this book; this is as much a Green Arrow story as a Batman story. His family, Black Canary and the Arrow family, needs to be front and center. So, that was the big thing: taking it in and making it [ours].
James had his template for the characters he likes, and then I came in and added – and we sort of added and subtracted. I really wanted the Wonder Twins to be a big part of it. I think when the Wonder Twins are facing the end of the universe, it’s fun and you get to see them really cut loose. But I like watching Plastic Man and Booster Gold and characters like that, who really will start to come out and be more center stage in this. Because again, it’s that thing of stripping things from them and seeing who they are in different scenarios. And I think both those characters have a chance to really shine in a fun way.
But mostly, it was just me and James grabbing our favorites and pushing them together as best we could; making it work. But that’s the nice thing about the book, since it’s in its own little universe, we can take anybody. The people who are gonna start to appear – I think folks are gonna be really shocked at which characters we use, because it’s just me and James chasing things we love and throwing them into the blender of the comic.
Was there anybody that surprised you? Anyone you didn’t have necessarily have a huge affinity for in either story and were like, “Oh, this dude’s a lot of fun. I really want more scenes with this guy.”
Matthew Rosenberg: It doesn’t surprise me, but I hadn’t written them before. I mean, I haven’t been a DC that long, but I haven’t written him before. We have Alfred in our book, and he’s just great. He’s just such a great character to write. You just get this feeling of warmth from writing him. I just realized that in all these scenes, I was like, “I could put Alfred in and give him a moment,” and I give him these sweet moments that we need.
Especially in the Bat family stuff and stuff in the mansion, he really changes the tone of every scene in a great way and brings a lot of light to the book that I think is very needed. Alfred’s just great. He’s great.
Getting to write Batman is obviously a pinch yourself moment. What is it like then elevating that to writing Batman in a global conspiracy?
Matthew Rosenberg: Yeah, it’s crazy. I’ve written a lot of superhero comics, and I’ve written a lot of stuff I’m really proud of. I take every character I write, and I work myself up so that it’s the most important character to me when I’m writing them, and it’s the thing I care about most.
But Batman has its own weight that is really hard to define. The first time I wrote Batman, I was like – there are just multiple times when you’re working on a script where you have to stop and be like, “That’s Batman.” That’s it; this is the pinnacle. Everybody who plays the game dreams about doing this at least once.
I just did a 10-page Batman story in Legends of The Dark Knight, and it was great. You put him in other things… But yeah, this is something where it’s really Batman saving the world. That’s the fun thing about Batman: every time you do something with him that’s new to you, you get that sense all over again of just the awe of the character; the weight and the history.
You can’t write Batman and not think about everyone who’s come before you and written Batman, and just the depth and breadth of the stories that have come to tell that you’re making one tiny little addition. It’s really heavy, and really intimidating and really thrilling, but it’s why you do this. So, I love it. I’m so happy to get to tell this story with him.
From your impression, do you get a sense that this embracing of horror at DC is something that fans can accept as a standard now?
Matthew Rosenberg: Again, I’m a little newer there. But the thing I’m sensing from editorial and from other creators and from just being a fan of the company is that this is an era of DC where, if an idea is fun and cool, they want to chase it and do it enthusiastically. And I think that means you can expect more horror, you can expect more comedy, you can expect more weird stuff, you can expect more sci fi, you can expect more romance.
I think all those things will start to come because right now, editorially and creatively, you’re in this really fun period of people just asking each other, “What do you want to do? What would you like to see on shelves? What would you like to make? How can we make that?” As a creator, I think it’s the most thrilling thing you can do. I’m as happy making these books as I’ve ever been making comics. I’m having so much fun, because I call my editors every day and I’m like, “Can we do this?” And they go, “Let’s find out.”
And that’s the best answer. It’s where you want to be creatively: people who are as excited as you to just see what we can do and see what we can get away with. I hope that becomes the status quo for a long time to come, for sure.
I’ll give you the opportunity to preemptively comment on people who say you have a type, going from Hawkeye to Green Arrow.
Matthew Rosenberg: I definitely have types. I think any writer who doesn’t have a type, I don’t trust them. That’s weird. Archery as a type is very narrow, though.
Otto is killing it there, though.
Matthew Rosenberg: Oh, yeah. I mean, how are you not gonna want to give him that? He loves Green Arrow and Black Canary so much that I was like, “Even if I didn’t want to do this, we have to do this for Otto. That’s what he wants to draw.” And when he’s happy drawing, he’s as good as anyone in the business. But yeah, come at me and tell me I have types. I think I like to subvert them a little bit sometimes. But yeah, sure. I like I like dudes with arrows.
DC vs. Vampires is a 12-issue series. Will it probably be wrapping up Halloween 2022?
Matthew Rosenberg: No [laughs]. Yeah, it’ll be around then. We’re figuring out stuff.
We want to make sure that Otto has the time to do every issue. He pencils, inks, and colors himself so we’re really making sure this isn’t going to be a book to has fill-ins. This is a prestigious book; we’re trying to make it a prestigious book where the creative team – me, James and Otto, with Ben Abernathy running the ship – made it. However long that takes is what we’re gonna do, but pretty much, it’s gonna be around them.
Matthew, what is your favorite Halloween monster?
Matthew Rosenberg: You know, there’s something simple and elegant about a vampire. I like a vampire. They’re really versatile. I don’t know. I feel like I’m supposed to say something weird, like pumpkin head or something. I don’t know. But I like a vampire. I’m a horror guy, but you go back to the classics. That’s why they’re classics.
DC vs. Vampires #1 arrives on October 26, wherever comics books are physically or digitally sold.